China AOS2 Interpretations

Question 1

Callick

Re: Military

Answer 1

‘It is not the army of the government, or of China more generally, but of the CCP.’

Question 2

Fenby

Re: national unity in new political system

Answer 2

this amounted to ‘window dressing; the non-Communist politicians were known as “flower vases” - there for decoration.’

11/23 ministers in govt. were non-communist h/w CCP maintained dominant authority

Question 3

Short

Re: Korean War propoganda

Answer 3

‘In this superheated atmosphere, the campaign to supress counter-revolutionaries burned white-hot.’

Question 4

Short

Re: Escelation of Land Reform

Answer 4

‘Peasants who killed with their nare hands the landlords who oppressed them were wedded to the new revolutionary order in a way that passive spectators could never be.’

Question 5

Dikotter

Re: Escelation of Land Reform

Answer 5

land reforms were ‘a pact sealed in blood between the Party and the poor.’

Question 6

Meisner

Re: Thought Reform (intellectuals)

Answer 6

Communists saw campaign as ‘educational’ rather than vindictive with the aim of producing ‘correct thoughts’

Question 7

Gray

Re: Wufan (businessmen)

Answer 7

Wufan was ‘an opportunity to pulverise China’s capitalists politically.’

Question 8

Terril

Re: Wufan (businessmen)

Answer 8

It was not necessary for CCP to destroy bourgeoisie b/c easily subdued: ‘Many capitalists turned red when the heat went on, silently, like lobsters put in hot water.’

Question 9

Dietrich

Re: Women’s Rights

Answer 9

China’s women had risen to the status of second-class citizens

Question 10

Spence

Re: First 5 Year Plan

Answer 10

‘it was a formidable achievement.’

Question 11

Dietrich

Re: Agricultural Stagnation on collectivisation

Answer 11

‘Did they prescribe the wrong medicine, or was the dose too small? Should they go backward or forward?’

Question 12

Ryan

Re: Mao’s speeches prior High Tide

Answer 12

‘electrifying effect’

Question 13

Ryan

Re: Hundred Flowers Campaign

Answer 13

Mao wants his ‘garden to bloom’

Question 14

Ryan

Re: Hundred Flowers Campaign

Answer 14

‘blooming and contending’ when critics spoke out became a ‘fine rain’ of criticism that grew into a heavy downpour of resentment.’

Question 15

Short

Re: reflection of Hundred Flowers Campaign

Answer 15

‘ambitious attempt… to combine a totalitarian system with democratic checks and balances… what started as an attempt to bridge the gap between the Party and the people… became a trap.’

Question 16

Short

Re: GLF & High Tide

Answer 16

Mao was ‘on an adrenaline high pumped up by the limitless vista of a bright Communist future in which nothing would be able to withstand the concerted efforts of 600 million people.’

Question 17

Fairbank

Re: People’s Communes

Answer 17

‘The state had become the ultimate landlord.’

Question 18

Chang & Halliday

Re: People’s Communes

Answer 18

‘The aim was to make slave driving more efficient.’

Question 20

Ryan

Re: People’s Communes

Answer 20

‘many ordinary people were genuinely enthusiastic for the People’s Communes.’

Question 21

Salisbury

Re: Backyard steel

Answer 21

‘The country looked as though it had been picked clean by iron-eating ants.’

Question 22

Terrill

Re: Manipulating statistics

Answer 22

Mao’s treatment of numbers reinforced the unrealistic nature of the Great Leap Forward

Question 23

Chang

Re: Manipulating statistics

Answer 23

‘disregard for reality.’

Question 24

Becker

Re: Manipulating Statistics

Answer 24

‘With each repetition, the lies became more and more fantastic, a ghastly parody of Chinese Whispers.’

Question 25

# Salisbury Re: Post-Lushan

Answer 25

'Mao turned his band of brothers into a claque, clapping hands and nodding heads like mechanical dolls.'

Question 26

# Fairbank Re: Famine

Answer 26

'an all-time first class manmade famine... the Great Leap Forward had played itself out as a Mao-made catastrophe.'

Question 27

# Becker Re: Famine

Answer 27

'famine culture' led to practices such as 'swap child, make food.'

Question 28

# Dikotter Re: Famine

Answer 28

'at least 45 million people died unnecessarily between 1958 and 1962.'

Question 29

# Hsu Re: Socialist Education Movement

Answer 29

most officials found it 'a hardship to be endured rather than an experience to be cherished.'

Question 30

# Hsu Re: Mao's frustration w Party

Answer 30

'Mao became convinced that it was not his policies that were wrong: rather - it was those in high Party positions who were distorting and diluting their implementation.'

Question 31

# Fenby Re: Mao's frustrations w Party

Answer 31

'grumblings of an irritable old man.'

Question 32

# Ryan Re: Prelude to CR

Answer 32

'a campaign of cataclysmic proportions.'

Question 33

# Ryan Re: Little Red Book

Answer 33

'pointless exercises in memorisation, with no practical benefit.'

Question 34

# Cook Re: Little Red Book

Answer 34

'A weapon of mass instruction.'

Question 35

# Dikotter Re: Culture

Answer 35

'The sheer scale of the idealogical rot was highlighted during the Socialist Education Campaign.'

Question 36

# Ryan Re: Prelude to CR

Answer 36

Mao started an 'extraordinary revolutionary movement against revisionist influences.'

Question 37

# Ryan Re: Prelude to CR

Answer 37

Liu Shaoqui returned to a 'political storm of dizzying complexity.'

Question 38

# Leys Re: Cultural Revolution

Answer 38

'It was a power struggle fought at the top between a handful of men and behind the smokescreen of a fictitious mass movement.'

Question 39

# Spence Re: Cultural Revolution

Answer 39

'This movement defies simple classification, for embedded within it were many impulses at once feeding and impeding each other.'

Question 40

# Fenby Re: Cultrural Revolution

Answer 40

Mao was' seeking immortality by identifying himself with symbols that would live on after him.'

Question 41

# Lifton Re: Cultural Revolution

Answer 41

Quest by Mao to achieve revolutionary immortality.'

Question 42

# Mitter Re: Cultural Revolution

Answer 42

'it was a genuinely mass political movement which left many youths as if they had the best days of their lives.'

Question 43

# Kraus Re: Cultural Revolution

Answer 43

'The Cultural Revolution's politics were self-conciouslt theatrical.'

Question 44

# Ryan Re: Mao's Good Swim

Answer 44

Mao was 'in fine health and more ready than ever to steer China through revolutionary waters.'

Question 45

# Moise Re: Cultural Revolution

Answer 45

'Mao's followers, not having been told exactly who or what they were struggling against, had to conjure up pictures of the enemny from their imaginations.'

Question 46

# Spence Re: Cultural Revolution

Answer 46

'They were repressed, angry and aware of their powerlessness.'

Question 47

# Fenby Re: Cultural Revolution

Answer 47

the movement grew because it was 'responding to social and human elements that had little to do with ideology.'

Question 48

# Spence Re: Cultural Revolution

Answer 48

it seems to 'have been a case of allowing theory to grow out of practise, as Mao had always interpreted the revolutionary process to be.'

Question 49

# Feigon Re: Ninth Party Congress (Victory of CR)

Answer 49

Mao had managed to 'infuse the government with a group of women who, unlike their predecessors, looked, talked and thought like the people they represented.'

Question 50

# Chang & Halliday Re: Post CR

Answer 50

'A vast prison of the mind' behind the bars of radical Maoist ideology

Question 51

# Feigon Re: Positive legacies of CR

Answer 51

'an enduring legacy of social justice, feminist ideals and even many democratic principles that still resonate with many in Chinese.'

Question 52

# Karl Re: Positive legacies of CR

Answer 52

Cultural Revolution 'was an inspiration to many... set free from constraints to practise mass politics.'

Question 53

# Kraus Re: Positive legacies of CR

Answer 53

'China's greatest experiment in participatory democracy.'

Question 54

# Mabo Gao Re: Barefoot Doctors

Answer 54

'fairly effective healthcare system.'

Question 55

# Kraus Re: Cleansing the Ranks

Answer 55

'most violent aspect of the Cultural Revolution.'

Question 56

# Spence Re: May Seventh Schools

Answer 56

'were as much prisons as schools.'

Question 57

# Chang & Halliday Re: Lin Biao's Fall

Answer 57

refusing to make a self-criticsm 'credibility tarnished further.'

Question 58

# Teiwes Re: Lin Biao's Death

Answer 58

it 'had a disorientating effect among ordinary Communists and cadres...'

Question 59

# Ryan Re: Lin Biao's Death

Answer 59

'How could a man so close to Mao turn out to be a criminal and backstabber?'